Captain:        Oliver Langley
                     

Location:      Caribbean

Passengers: Adrienne Robbins
                     Susan Grimson
                     Julie Milligan
                     Steve Tropp

Surfers:        Dave Kalama

Scientist:      Daniel Reineman

Capts Log 2 April 2004

Anyway, today we had some new people come and join us on the boat. They are the people mentioned above. The Reef Check prize winners. They seem completely in awe of the boat, The Crossing, the Caribbean sunset and just escaping the daily grind that life in a big city can become. I was going to throw in the comment that they seem completely in awe of the captain but that would be inappropriate, maybe untrue. Dave Kalama is one who is not in awe of much at all (watch Dave rip into 20 foot waves in the James Bond movie, Die another day and you will see what I mean) was still just as stoked to be getting on the Indies Trader today as he was the first time he joined The Crossing. The new Reef Check guy has recently completed his degree in marine biology and doesn’t yet consider himself a scientist. As we have logged him in as the ships scientist I figure that we have just kick started his career. He will never forget the Quiksilver Crossing.

Capts Log 3 April 2004

Started the morning off right today with a beautiful wall dive: the shelf dropped off at about 16m depth (too deep for a reef check), and faded away to the bottom of the sea with nothing but clear blue in all directions. The wall itself had excellent cover of corals and gorgonians, and sponges I could have a crawled into. Capt Oliver found a nice cave, and headed in, stopping before he got stuck. Steve and Adrienne found a grouper the size of, well, Adrienne. The Capt had a good trick to attract some sharks, rolling a half full plastic water bottle between his hands, producing a crackling sound. And when a giant shadow passed overhead, I nearly pee’d my pants. But looking up, it was only the red hull of the Indies Trader. No sharks showed up.

Capts Log 6 April 2004

As we awoke this morning we were greeted by completely still conditions. The first thing I noticed was a boat out to sea, it was so still that I could not clearly see the horizon or the water and the boat looked like it was just hanging in the air. Needless to say with the wind so low we blasted straight off to check the nearby reef pass. It was small but flawless so we all followed Dave Kalama’s lead and went out on long boards. Julie Milligan had a go on Daves short board (9’6”) and got a couple. Dave, Dan and the cook were all over it. Dave throwing 360’s and doing reverse take offs, the cook was carving unreal cutbacks on a mal with no center fin and Dan was styling high and tight. All good stuff. I finally got my go after Julie had taken a couple and really enjoyed surfing a long board for a change. The waves were such that it would have been hard to stretch out on a short board but on a mal the possibilities were endless.

Once we had had our fill of waves we slowly made our way back to the tinboat so that we would not be late for the flights that everyone had to get. Anchor was weighed and we made our way in to the harbour for the de-mob. Unusually, everyone was ahead of schedule with packing (perhaps because there were no boards to pack) and we quickly had everyone on the dock and ready to jump in the taxi. Goodbyes were said, address were exchanged and Mary had to take a photo of us with every camera on the boat. Once all was said and done we found ourselves back on the Trader taking stock of what we had to do for the next round of passengers due tomorrow